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Data from today's medical meeting shows that better than 60% of patients with a resistant strain of hepatitis C treated with an experimental drug from Vertex Pharmaceuticals were cured.
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Times Health Guide: Hepatitis C
The results, eagerly awaited by Wall Street as well as by doctors, represent the highest cure rate yet reported for the condition — and the treatment was accomplished in half the usual time.
Vertex, however, may not stand alone in the spotlight since Romark Laboratoies, though a small privately held company, already sells Alina, a drug that has been used to treat diarrhea caused by parasites but that is now being looked at as a possible treatment for hepatitis C.
In a presentation that has escaped the attention of Wall Street, though it is to be made at the same meeting, researchers are to report that Alinia helped cure as many as 79 percent of hepatitis C patients, although they had a form of the virus that might be slightly easier to treat than the type Vertex took on.
“There will be skepticism because this has come out of right field,Hepatitis C,Liver Disease, HCV, cirrhosis said MD. Emmet B. The consultant to Romark is, Stanford's chief of hepatology, Keefe. Proper medical treatment is very essential for early cure of any of your diseases. But the Doctor who is treating you should be well qualified and intelligent enough to do proper diagnosis and cure. In regard to his cirrhosis of the liver, Keefe acknowledged that the results were very promising and that he overcome his first misdoubts.According to experts, larger trials will be needed to follow up both developments. Patients will feel that the progress being made is one of the most important factors. It is believed that Hepatitis C affects almost three million Americans and instances of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer triggered by the virus are on the rise.
Alpha interferon and ribavirin combined together can cause debilitating side effects such as flulike symptoms, anemia and depression and this is the existing treatment. Hepatitis C treatment takes about a year. This form accounts for nearly 70 percent of all hepatitis cases in the United States.
So the hunt for new drugs has been intense, and Vertex, a publicly traded company based in Cambridge, Mass., is widely acknowledged as the front-runner. A viral enzyme can be interferred with by a pill named telaprevir or VX-950. This is the way the majority of AIDS drugs work, but it is a different method for hepatitis C.
While Vertex has previously shown that telaprevir can sharply reduce virus levels in patients’ blood, the new data, to be presented at the meeting, an annual gathering of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in Boston, is the first strong signal of how many patients could be cured.
In a midstage trial in the United States of 250 previously untreated patients, 61 percent of the people who received telaprevir in addition to the two standard drugs had no detectable virus in their blood 24 weeks after the end of the treatment, a Vertex executive said. That is considered an effective cure by doctors.
In Europe the three-drug combination experimental treatment, of 323 patients proved that 65 percent of them had no dectecable viruses left.
With the use of the standard drugs offered, the cure rate for type 1 hepatitis C is more than 40 to 50 percent.
By taking only the standard drugs of today, for type 1 hepatitis C, the cure rate is typically more than 40 to 50 percent. Perhaps as significant, doctors said, the treatment took 24 weeks instead of the usual 48. This means that the side effects of Interferon and Ribavirin would not last as long for patients.
"The findings are fascinating indeed," said Physician M.Ira Jacobson of weill cornell Medical college will present the results of the American trial and consultant to Vertex.
Wall Street was expecting these figures so it wasn't a big surprise. In addition, numerous individuals receiving these drugs discontinued taking them due to side effects, compared to people receiving the customary treatment. What is not available are the standard therapy trial cure rates.
Romark's data comes from a study done in Egypt in which the patient sample was limited to a mere 96 previously untreated individuals. Alinia, or nitazoxnice, had also been tested for treating parasites.
In just 12 weeks after finishing their care of Alinia and two other standard drugs, 79 percent no longer had the virus. In comparison, the control group receiving the standard treatment was 43 percent. Even though the overall treatment was for 48 weeks, the drugs were only given to the patient for 36 weeks.
In the United States, hepatitis C is rare, but this is what the patients had. Some experts said type 4 was slightly easier to treat than type 1. Romark, which is based in Tampa, Fla.They have begun a trial in the U.S., bringing a $20 million anual revenue to the table.
They found out by accident that the drug could be effective fighting hepatitis C. The drug tested, when used as treatment for parasites, had the ability to counteract against liver infection.
Physician Keeffe,a Romark drug researcher told that Alinia is already on the market and appears to have few side effects, some doctors might prescribe it off label to treat Hepatitis C.
The two pills required average a cost of about $30 daily. It is eligible for nurses to write medication for uses other than those the Food and Drug Administration has passed for approval, but a drug creator is not allowed to increase the level of medicines for those wrong label uses before formal allowance from others.
“We’re all looking for better therapy for our patients, and this looks like a very benign thing to do,Hepatitis C,Liver Disease, HCV, cirrhosis Physician Keeffe communicated.
But Dr. Doing so would be quite premature according to Jacobson out of Cornell.”
Hepatitis C Website
Joe Healy is an expert on Hepatitis C
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